I don't know about all that. What I don't like about couples writing their own vows is that the writing is probably going to be bad. Attention is drawn away from the awesome reality of vow-taking to the particular words these 2 characters thought were so profound. You have to think about how the vows compare to the traditional vows and, before you know it, you've gone all judgmental and then you feel like you're doubting the quality of the couple's relationship and that seems pretty shabby of you.

46 comments:

There's nothing a couple can say to each other that isn't encompassed by "love, honor, and cherish."

George Orwell was a famous proponent of precision in language and brevity of thought. It was his opinion that allowing people to get away with overcomplicating simple ideas with extra flourishes and ultimately meaningless phrases gave rise to the ability to excuse even the most horrendous crimes against humanity.

(I'll spare you the details, but if you're interested then go to Wikipedia and look up Orwell's essays on the subject.)

But back to the point: there is nothing to be gained by saying in 100 words what can be succintly said in 4.

"Love, honor and cherish" cover every situation a couple will ever encounter. Everything else is just so much fluff.

considering i am unemployed, uninsured and know these things well, i find the phrase so apt. that is how you know you have met the right person. You are actually feel un-alone. To know the difference is to know so much.

Attention is drawn away from the awesome reality of vow-taking to the particular words these 2 characters thought were so profound.

Most of what's said at a wedding is sappy. I was asked to read a poem at a friend's, years ago, from the oeuvre of Susan Polis Schutz, co-founder of the Blue Mountain Arts greeting card company. It was sappy and the marriage barely lasted seven years.

You have to think about how the vows compare to the traditional vows and, before you know it, you've gone all judgmental and then you feel like you're doubting the quality of the couple's relationship and that seems pretty shabby of you.

Most of what's said at a wedding is sappy. ....(snip)....It was sappy and the marriage barely lasted seven years.

Neither my husband or myself can remember what was said at our own wedding 15 years ago. Our friend, who officiated, helped us pick out some verbage that was sort of non secular from the Bible. Luke, I think it was.

It really doesn't matter does it? As long as the love, honor, cherish and un-alone part work, who cares.

We also don't really remember the exact wedding day either. It was a Saturday Memorial Day Weekend 15 years ago. They keep moving Memorial Day around (the bastards) so we just figure....close enough. I suppose I could go look it up, but why bother?

I'm actually half convinced we should keep "obey" on the theory that the older and more traditional something seems (even if we understand that some parts aren't to be too worried over) the more weight it has.

The lady who performed the ceremony for my sister and BIL actually included a little speech about why the bride wasn't going to be "given away".

Frankly, seems to me, that the little rhetorical clues that the ceremony is OLD OLD OLD would make it richer overall. Everyone knows that times have changed, but how nice to be reminded that you're repeating a tradition that you can envision happening a thousand years ago?

We wrote our own because my husband was a Christian, and I was a non-Christian theist. We wanted Biblical verbiage, but I was adamant that no references to Jesus be included. Of course, this was for the family dinner and exchange of vows which took place three months after we had eloped and been married by a justice of the peace. Those vows, the first ones, we didn't write.

What we have here is a failure to communicate. Marriage is a contract and its terms can be negotiated. The obey part can also be left out, or said by both, or said only man to woman. The other concept under dicussion is of a Vow. A vow is religious in nature. Vows are made to God, and require a faith in God as a party to the marriage relationship to have any meaning.

My partner and I spoke our own vows 28 years ago this day. We had no wish to be nontraditional. This was meant to be a ceremony of sacred commitment, but without supernatural pretense. We cherish the memory.

For example, you can promise that you will always strive to treat your spouse with decency and respect, even when you are angry. Or you can promise that you will never engage in an extrarelationship sexual liaison.

But then...

But can you solemnly vow that you will experience love for your partner not only tomorrow, but also in 20 or even 50 years from now? There's a decent chance that you really will love your spouse until death do you part, but promising that you will do so seems dangerous, especially if you're the sort of person who takes your solemn vows seriously.

Ignoring the obvious misunderstanding of what vowing to love someone means...

So we're more likely to fall out of love than to say something a bit disrespectful in the heat of anger? Oh, no, my bad. It says "promise to strive." What is that? Lame! "I VOW to try..." That would be the lamest set of vows ever. Why would you even bother to vow trying?

We thought about writing our own vows. For about five minutes. Then decided against it. Then sort of changed our minds. We decided not to write something up from scratch, but rather to have a redacted version.

The pastor marrying us had sent us a page of sample vows to choose from. We figured that we liked elements of some, but not the entirety of any. We looked at what he sent us, went online to look at more, and pieced together a version. What we came up with together was not entirely original, but it expressed what we we felt were strong and meaningful vows, not just words to repeat.

Here's the vows and the ring exchange we threw together:

Vows

Do you, _____________, take _______________, to be your wife/husband; promising before God, and your family and friends, to be a loving and loyal husband/wife, to cherish and keep her/him for better or worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, to be faithful only to him/her as long as you both shall live?

Answer: I do.

Rings

I _______, take you _______, to be my wife/husband.

I humbly give you my hand and my heart as a sanctuary of warmth and peace, and pledge my faith and love to you.

I give you this ring as a symbol of my love; and with all that I am and all that I have, I honor you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

My dear wife and I used the traditional vows (well, we used "love honor and cherish") but with no mention of rings, as we didn't have wedding rings then (we couldn't afford them).

My wife was raised in Beijing, and I haven't been a Christian since I was old enough to think about such things for myself, we didn't have religious reasons for wanting the vows.

But we wanted the traditional vows, because marriage is bigger than us. It's not something we are making up. It is something that's been going on as long as civilization, and we are joining it, as did our ancestors before us.

Our vows were pretty traditional. I don't think we even considered writing our own.

Some years earlier, I attended the wedding of my girlfriend's brother. They had written their own vows, which seemed to say what the traditional script said, but took a lot longer to get through. Adding to the bad memory was the musician, who played the "Wedding Song" on his guitar (you know, the one that goes, "There is Loooooove"). As I recall, the song has no more than five or six chords, but he had sheet music, and had to pause to turn the pages. I heard people compliment him after the wedding, but I hadn't the stomach for it.